With the spring semester now underway, parents and faculty at Abraham Lincoln Elementary are growing restless as the district scrambles to solve the school’s overcrowding issues.

Within the scope of the Chicago Public Schools system, Lincoln Elementary, a kindergarten through eighth grade school on the city’s North Side, suffers from an almost inverted ailment. Unlike nearby schools such as George Schneider Elementary and the Arts of Living Alternative School — where closures were pushed through in the last decade in light of low enrollment, poor testing and under-utilization — Lincoln has flourished, as has the number of families with school-age children in the area.

Located at 615 W. Kemper Place, Lincoln currently serves around 810 students, 96 percent of whom met or exceeded state testing standards last year, in a facility with a 630-student capacity.

Erica Wax, who serves as president of Lincoln’s Local School Council, said that the school, though still comfortable in terms of staffing and resources, is physically stretched.

“For us, it’s about using every single available space to put classrooms in,” she said.

A few years ago, before Lincoln’s student population began to climb exponentially, the school maintained two homerooms per grade. Today, five of Lincoln’s grade levels — including the kindergarten class — have four homerooms, while the rest have three.

That growth has forced Lincoln Principal Mark Armendariz to maximize space in the school, shifting classes in and out of nearly every room in the building, period by period, Wax said.

“It’s very complicated and difficult for [Armendariz] to have to keep re-jiggering that situation,” she said.

Armendariz declined to comment for this story.

Wax added that the school is also at a loss for cafeteria space and play areas for students during recess.

“We have a postage stamp-sized piece of property — we don’t have a big place for the kids to run around in,” she said.

According to Wax, Armendariz first took up the overcrowding issue with Chicago Public Schools administrators two years ago.

After a period of little dialogue between the school and the district, CPS sent representatives to meet with the LSC and Lincoln’s parent community in December. At that meeting, CPS Chief Administrative Officer Tim Cawley told attendees that the district was considering a proposal to adjust Lincoln’s enrollment policy so that families south of Armitage Avenue in the school’s current boundaries would be redirected to LaSalle Language Academy, a much-sought-after magnet school at 1734 N. Orleans St. The plan involved dissolving LaSalle as a magnet program and reworking it into a neighborhood school.

Parents at La Salle railed against the plan — as did the Lincoln camp, accusing CPS of disregarding the school’s active parent community and calling for the district to consider other short and long term options, such as renting space in a nearby facility or building an extension for Lincoln in the neighborhood. Cawley said that the prospect of new construction was unlikely give the district’s tight budget, and stated that a decision on the enrollment issue at Lincoln could see a vote by the school board as early as Jan. 25.

A few days later, CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard announced that the district had scrapped the plan to involve La Salle. CPS went back to Lincoln last week to continue the discussion — only this time the agency was all ears.

“We’ve taken a step back, and we want re-engage the community to get input on what the ideas are that you have, and what concerns you have,” Adam Anderson, Officer of Portfolio Planning and Strategy for CPS, at the LCS meeting, held on Jan. 10.

During the meeting, which ran nearly two hours, parents again harangued the district’s idea of tightening the school’s enrollment boundaries, while members of the school council pressed the district to come up with a plan by March, so that students can meet the July 17 enrollment deadline for the upcoming school year.

“We need to look both short and long term to make sure that students at Lincoln Elementary have an effective learning environment … starting Fall 2012,” said Anderson.

When asked if the district was favoring any solutions for the Lincoln dilemma, CPS spokesperson Frank Shuftan did not cite any specific recommendations.

“We have been and will continue to meet with the community and parents to discuss the long-term options around enrollment issues Lincoln School is facing,” Shuftan wrote in an email on Tuesday. “This conversation will be ongoing as we want to ensure that the needs of all students and their families are being met and that they are involved in this process.”

In terms of a timeline for the decision, he said it was “highly unlikely anything will be brought to the Board in January.”

Meanwhile, one group is banding together to fight for attention on the issue.

Eric Gurry, a parent at Lincoln, is one of the organizers behind We Are Lincoln Elementary!, a recently-formed group of parents and teachers aimed at organizing around overcrowding at the school.

Gurry said that the school wouldn’t stand for another redistricting proposal like the one previously submitted by CPS.

“What is the incentive for people in the far flung neighborhoods of Chicago to work and invest time into their local schools, if they know that when successful, they’ll probably be redistricted out of their school?” he said.

Lincoln’s greatest strength, he said, is the support it gets from the community at the school, and unlike at other schools in the district, parents at Lincoln won’t go quietly.

“I think [CPS] realizes that if they don’t accept us in as a partner in this we’ll be the squeaky wheel,” Gurry said. “And we’ll squeak pretty loudly.”

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By Boyee from Mid-North in Lincoln Park
Posted: 01/19/2012 8:52 PM

I feel the best solution for Lincoln Elementary is to make it a neighborhood only school. That will cut down over enrollment.